The Lunar Muse

To be honest, I’ve never given myself much thought. I live a boring life. There is hardly any color in my everyday affairs. No music has ever echoed here nor have fragrances lingered nearby. I just go about my business, waiting for no one. I don’t remember when I started my journey and I have no idea when I will stop. Such is my existence that I’m almost bored just talking about it!

Yet, I see I’m given so much time, effort and money. I have wondered what is exciting about white and black and some patches of a dull grey perhaps, that highlight imperfections. But the prettiest damsels have been compared to me. Their perfect glowing faces are beautified in my terms. Pray why would somebody compare such charming faces to a blemished crescent?

I don’t have much that I can call my own. I cannot boast of having nurtured civilizations. Yet, I’m often used as a measure of time and the basis of intricate rules within cultures. I seem to warrant good times and dictate when bad omens are around the corner. As if I would really know anything like that from my very minimalistic and unexciting routine.

Except for a handful of curious folks, who send stuff to poke and prod my surface and explore my scars and crevices in great detail, the rest of them on the blue planet look at me and go about their busy scattered lives. Sometimes, though, I’m a child’s entertainment for his dinner time, an old poet’s enchanting muse, a photographer’s greatest challenge during an eclipse, street light to some and guiding light to others.

I have no light of my own. I’m dark and pockmarked. I don’t deviate from my mundane path. I do not seek adventure and do not long for company. Most of the earthlings do not know my destiny. Yet, they sing my praises, paint my portraits, frame my pictures and craft poems in my honor. It is a little amusing to me.

I’m about to dip into nothingness once again for this side of the magnificent globe. ‘Hello India, how do you do?’ I think in my head as I see lamps being lit and people retiring for the day. I want to pause a bit and be the observer instead of the one being observed. But I look ahead and continue to spin forward on my elliptical journey into the black, along the invisible path that I call my own.